Kudos to This Week, the new Smiths Falls weekly newspaper for their coverage of the Montague election campaign, results night and most recent council meeting. In particular, the editorial in tonight's edition is right on the money with their assessment of the parting-shot pay cut antics of the previous council.
There has been discussion here of the roles of 'old' vs. 'new' media in local coverage. I think that actually bloggers and concerned citizens can achieve a great deal in terms of informing, discussing, dissecting, investigating and covering local affairs. Local newspapers by necessity operate on tight budgets and their limited staff can't be everywhere at once. When people are blogging daily about their own lives and their own immediate concerns, then much more information can be put out there much more quickly.
This blog (the Montague part of it, that is) started out anonymously and quietly; I wrote a post on the Lawsuit a while back for the benefit of Blogging Tories elsewhere in the country, some of whom had covered the civil liberties angle at the time the suit was launched. Someone found it; comments came in. Word of mouth did the rest. I started writing the election coverage. Readers snowballed, comments flew. And now it feels like we're almost a community. A newspaper doesn't do that; it can't do that.
Over the next few months I will be talking to people about what kind of role this blog or some development of it might play in Montague as we move forward. But for the time being I hope it's a complement to the local 'old' media. Personally I find the Reckless and EMC a bit 'fluffy', but I'm liking the writing and news coverage in This Week. Who knows, maybe old and new will team up one of these days for a feature or something...
SPECIAL NOTICE : CHARITY AUCTION SATURDAY 25th NOVEMBER
On that note, although this blog is a political blog and not intended for this kind of thing, a reader did ask me to let people know about a charity auction in Carleton Place tomorrow night (Saturday 25th). I'm making an exception for this case. Please don't start sending me your events information!
The auction is at Carleton Place High School and is in aid of Calvary Christian Academy, a non profit school that covers an area fromRichmond, Stittsville, Smiths Falls, Perth, Carleton Place, Lanark etc.There is a silent auction at 6 p.m. and regular auction at 7:00 p.m.Refreshments available and lots of wonderful items for auction: theatresize TV, exercise bike, computers, trips, many smaller items and lots andlots more Christmas shopping to be done. All items are new. For more infomation, call 613-283-1184
